On Thu, 22 Mar 2012 06:31:21 +0900, Miles Bader wrote:


" writes:
On 21/03/2012 00:11, Charles Ellson wrote:
On Tue, 20 Mar 2012 22:05:03 +0000, "
wrote:
Probably also because O'Leary tried to bid for the equipment at an
unrealistically low level and, when the equipment provider declined, he
became verbally abusive.

"Became" ?

Yes, you are right.

Became extremely verbally abusive.

I think Charles was saying that O'Leary is _always_ that way...

I don't recall ever seeing him not in slagging mode (which I suspect
the man from Middlesex did subtly acknowledge) but then that probably
would not be regarded as newsworthy.

[I dunno whether that's true, though O'Leary does seem to be a
full-time douchebag.]

" .... describing himself as "the world’s greatest gob****e". "
http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland...ds-143592.html

On 21/03/2012 21:31, Miles Bader wrote:

writes:
On 21/03/2012 00:11, Charles Ellson wrote:
On Tue, 20 Mar 2012 22:05:03 +0000, "
wrote:
Probably also because O'Leary tried to bid for the equipment at an
unrealistically low level and, when the equipment provider declined, he
became verbally abusive.

"Became" ?

Yes, you are right.

Became extremely verbally abusive.

I think Charles was saying that O'Leary is _always_ that way...

[I dunno whether that's true, though O'Leary does seem to be a
full-time douchebag.]

-miles

Yes, I was absolutely acknowledging what Charles was saying. Only, I was
saying that he became extremely verbally abusive, as compared to his
normal verbally abusive.

On 19/03/2012 20:57, Stephen Sprunk wrote:
On 19-Mar-12 11:20, Roland Perry wrote:
In , at 11:10:46 on Mon, 19 Mar
2012, Stephen remarked:
(On another note, I flew Transatlantic with such an airline last year,
and did wonder how they cope with unaccompanied minors, who almost
certainly won't have any cards).

Just tell minors to use their cash to buy a gift card before they board.

Eventually you may come to accept that gift cards like that are only
available in the USA. It's been mentioned half a dozen times already,
but maybe if we keep saying it you'll believe it.

They can buy the cards at the airport before they leave on an eastbound
transatlantic (or westbound transpacific) flight.

How long do you think it'll take until such cards are available at the
other end of those flights? It's not a difficult concept to grasp.

I suspect the only reason they don't _already_ exist is the cost of the
EMV chip required by many European merchants. However, that will have
to be solved in the US market in a few years as well, as gift cards are
an established (and profitable) product here that won't be going away.

Even ignoring that, minors certainly _can_ have cards; I got my first at
15 and could have gotten one sooner if there had been a reason to. In
theory, a minor can't be the _primary_ cardholder since they aren't
considered competent to execute contracts, but there is no minimum age
for a secondary card. And some banks don't ask the applicant's age, as
in my case, so a minor can indeed get their own card from such banks.

That's most likely another USA thing,

Do European banks not have the concept of secondary cards? Each gets
their own card with their own name on it, and they're linked to a common
account, but secondary card holders are _not_ signatories to the card
contract and therefore are not legally liable for payment--which means
they can be minors.

Not asking applicants' age in the first place is risky, but there are
lots of stupid banks out there--or who know some applicants will be
underage and are willing to take the risk in order to buy the loyalty of
future adult customers before other banks are paying attention.

and a bit of a sledgehammer to crack this nut.

Obviously, one wouldn't open an account for a single trip. However,
millions of teens _already_ have cards, including minors, and can use
them on said trip. Those who are flying regularly, particularly
internationally, are probably _most_ likely to have cards.

S

I saw them in the City on Wednesday evening.

Mizter T writes:

On 20/03/2012 07:54, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 15:13:45 on Mon, 19 Mar
2012, Stephen Sprunk remarked:
If you prefer something more concrete, consider the UK has a land area
of 243,610 km^2--slightly smaller than Oregon, our 9th-largest state,
and 1/37th that of the entire US.

Having spent quite a bit of time in Texas, I prefer to think of the UK
as being able to fit inside it.

Think of this in terms of having free pan-EU roaming vs. your current
national service, with your service location only determining which
country code your number is from.

On PAYG rates, since last year it's broadly similar in cost to use a
mobile anywhere in the EU now. Partly because regulators capped the
maximum roaming charge, but also because operators increased costs of
intra-UK calling to compensate.

One day we may see the same for "bundled minutes", it's not a technical
thing - the networks are pan-European, just commerce.

Though the big communications groups don't necessarily have a presence
in each country (e.g. France Telecom/ Orange has no presence in
Germany, and Deutsche Telekom/ T-Mobile has no presence in
France). But yes, it's more a commerce thing.
In the UK they are now a single operator, and I have noticed that the
first choice for our T-Mobile phones when roaming in France is Orange.

In return for using my bundled minutes and no roaming charges, I would
certainly be happy to accept Orange France coverage, and to drop roaming
onto Bougitel or SFR.

Stephen Sprunk wrote:

(The FCC prohibits allocating separate area codes to mobile carriers,
claiming that would be "discriminatory", so their numbers come from the
same geographical area codes as land lines. This causes many problems
and, in the end, hurts consumers.)

Causes problems and hurts consumers? What the hell are you talking about here?

Because the original mobile carriers were all subsidiaries of the incumbent
land line telephone companies, they thought in land-line terms.

For billing purposes, traditionally, calls from land lines were rated on
time and distance. Initially, cell phone calls were rated on time, only,
within the home coverage area, and time and distance, if the call terminated
outside the home coverage area. If roaming was involved, there was a time
surcharge based on the handset being physically outside the home coverage
area, although that didn't necessarily change how the long distance part
of the charge was rated.

The distance part of the charge was based on the distance between origin
and destination rating points. For land lines, the geographic polygon
associated with the rating point is called the "exchange". (The term
"exchange" also applies to the central office building that houses the
switch, but that definition isn't relevant for billing purposes.)

Every cell phone was assigned a rating point artificially so distance
charges could be calculated. Distance applied to outbound calls from
the cell phone if long distance charges were involved, and to inbound
calls from land lines. The rating point wasn't necessarily assigned to
the cell phone subscriber for the subscriber's convenience nor proximity
to the address to which the bill was sent. The subscriber, of course,
could ask for a phone number assigned to the rating point he desired,
if he was aware of the situation.

As long as cell phones were artificially associated with a specific
rating point, it made no sense to assign them to unique area codes
that were also geographic. If cell phone calls never had distance-based
charges associated with them, inbound or outbound, only then would it
have made sense to assign non-geographic area codes to them.

Yes, non-geographic area code is an oxymoron, but that's the term.

Area code 917 was assigned to New York City in 1991, opened in 1992. The
original area code was 212. Brooklyn, Queen, and Staten Island were split
out from 212 into newly assigned 718 in 1984. Also in 1992, the Bronx
was reassigned from 212 to 718. 917 was an overlay of 212 and 718.

At first, 917 was assigned to cell phone service, only. This annoyed
cell phone subscribers, as those dialing from land lines had to dial
extra digits. FCC got involved and ruled that geographic area codes
unique to cell phone service could no longer be created, and in case
of overlays, the same dialing plan had to be in place for calls dialed
to the home area code and the overlay area code. Home area code dialing
means that the area code of the originating and terminating phone numbers
are the same; foreign area code dialing means the area codes of the two
numbers are different. By FCC rule, overlays therefore eliminated seven digit
home area code dialing.

917 wasn't cell phone only for long. Today, it's a general purpose area
code and does have land line prefixes in it. Also, the other New York City
area codes have cell phone prefixes in them. Some Manhattan cell phone
subscribers have 718 cell phone numbers, for instance. However, 212
itself has no cell phone prefixes, although local number portability rules
would allow former land line numbers to be transferred to a cell phone.

Stephen appears to be perpetuating the myth that cell phone services lead
to line number exhaustion and thus area code exhaustion. This isn't true.
Area codes are exhausted when prefixes are no longer available for assignment,
but even in a prefix opened decades ago, there are numerous unassigned
line numbers.

The trouble is that prefixes in geographic area codes were typically assigned
to a carrier and used to route calls originating on one network to a
foreign network.

Local number portability could have solved the problem since LNP areas
require a lookup of the entire phone number, not just area code and
prefix combination, to learn what network the call terminates on. FCC
imposed LNP. Taking the technology to its fullest utility, all carriers
desiring to serve a particular exchange, land line, or rating point, wireless,
should have been required to make line number assignments from the same
pool of line numbers and no prefix should be unique to any carrier or network.

But LNP by FCC rules is a half-assed solution that doesn't eliminate a
great deal of waste of numbering space.

On Fri, 30 Mar 2012 16:25:48 +0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman"
wrote:

Stephen Sprunk wrote:

(The FCC prohibits allocating separate area codes to mobile carriers,
claiming that would be "discriminatory", so their numbers come from the
same geographical area codes as land lines. This causes many problems
and, in the end, hurts consumers.)

Causes problems and hurts consumers? What the hell are you talking about here?

Because the original mobile carriers were all subsidiaries of the incumbent
land line telephone companies, they thought in land-line terms.

For billing purposes, traditionally, calls from land lines were rated on
time and distance. Initially, cell phone calls were rated on time, only,
within the home coverage area, and time and distance, if the call terminated
outside the home coverage area.

What is a cell phone? Used in prisons?

Guy Gorton

Guy Gorton wrote:

What is a cell phone? Used in prisons?

Oh, good grief. You use the concept in your country.

A cellular network is based on the ability of a handset to communicate
with transceivers in numerous cell sites. The coverage area is broken
up into cells. Towers are placed at the edges of the cell with the ability
to broadcast into three neighboring cells. The handset can communicate
with transceivers on any of three towers. If the wireless handset is
moving in a vehicle, the call can be handed off seemlessly as it moves
from one cell to the next.

Contrast with a marine radio that communicates with one base and a
signal that broadcasts over a larger area of water.

You aren't aware that mobile phones use a cellular network?

Guy Gorton wrote:

What is a cell phone? Used in prisons?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone

On 30/03/2012 18:03, Guy Gorton wrote:
On Fri, 30 Mar 2012 16:25:48 +0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman"
wrote:

For billing purposes, traditionally, calls from land lines were rated on
time and distance. Initially, cell phone calls were rated on time, only,
within the home coverage area, and time and distance, if the call terminated
outside the home coverage area.

What is a cell phone? Used in prisons?

Like a mobile, but with the useful feature that the user pays for
the inconvenience to everyone in earshot, rather than the caller.

(US mobiles have numbers that look like ordinary landline numbers
rather than being split off into a distinctive series, like our
07... numbers, so a US caller won't be aware from the number that
they are calling a cellular phone.)


--
Graham Nye
news(a)thenyes.org.uk

On 30/03/2012 18:40, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Guy Gorton wrote:

What is a cell phone? Used in prisons?

Oh, good grief. You use the concept in your country.

You aren't aware that mobile phones use a cellular network?

I expect he is. Guy is pointing out that you are cross-
posting to two newsgroups where we call such devices
mobiles.


--
Graham Nye
news(a)thenyes.org.uk